Instant messaging is a form of communication over the internet that allows for the near instantaneous transmission and receipt of text-based messages between two or more computer users. IM allows for users to have near real-time conversations over a computer network, such as the internet, independent of the location of the users. IM generally works by having an IM client installed on a user computer that connects to an IM system or IM server. The IM client allows a user to select a person to send an IM to, enter in texts for the IM, and receive IMs from other IM users. Examples of IM clients include Microsoft® Lync®, IBM®, Lotus®, Sametime®, and Google® Talk.
Due to IM's speed and ease of use IM has become prevalent in the modern workplace. Employers large and small often include internal IM clients to help improve communication and collaboration between employees. IM messaging allows for an employee to quickly contact other employees and receive prompt responses.
SMS is a text messaging component of cellular phones that allows a phone operator to nearly instantly send a text-based message to another cellular phone. SMS messages use a standardized communication protocol that allows for a message up to 160 7-bit characters to be sent at a time. Longer messages may be broken into a series of text messages. As the use of cellular phones has proliferated SMS messaging has become increasingly popular. The introduction of “smart phones” and their ability to quickly and easily send SMS messages has further increased the use of SMS messaging. SMS messaging has further evolved to also include multimedia message services (MMS) which added the ability to send multimedia files such as photographs and videos via cellular networks.
Currently these two systems operate independently from each other. Oftentimes in commercial buildings, cellular service can be poor, unreliable, or nonexistent leading to communication issues with people outside of the enterprise environment. Additionally, SMS messages sent to employee telephones are often logged or stored in a way that is accessible to by a companies communications environment. This communications may be later overlooked or even lost if an employees phone is lost.
It is with these and other issues in mind that various aspects of the present disclosure were developed. Thus, techniques are described herein to improve the reliability and ease of communications with those inside of the enterprise environment.